


Bruise

by sharpistheblade



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Consensual Underage Sex, Consensual Violence, I Can Only Write These Two As Obsessed With Eachother, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Incest, Light Sado-Masochism, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Violent Bruce Wayne, brudami, underage yo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpistheblade/pseuds/sharpistheblade
Summary: It’s not the first time someone broke his nose, but it is the first time Bruce does it and he is filled with both anger and regret as much as he is exalted. He finds no compromise between those three emotions so he allows all of them to wash over him while his father stands towering over him under the steady summer rain.He lays there, on his hands and knees, fingers swimming in a puddle filled with neon reflections. The rooftop smells like wet concrete and the sound of the rain is a melody that will haunt his memory of that moment for as long as he will be able to remember it.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne/Damian Wayne
Kudos: 8





	Bruise

[...] the smell of blood  
on the first four knuckles.  
We pull our boots on with both hands  
but we can’t punch ourselves awake and all I can do  
is stand on the curb and say _Sorry_  
 _about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine_.

Richard Siken, _Little Beast_

Damian should have known where it would have all led to the second he tilted his head backwards and looked into his father’s eyes for the first time. He should have had a vision of it in that moment because he still remembered, with startling clarity, how he felt when their eyes, green on blue, clashed for the first time when Bruce’s mask finally came off - he felt elated somehow, he felt a rush of adrenaline shoot, lightning fast, through his body. It turned into something else as soon as it reached its target, lodged itself into his mind and heart, unwilling to budge. 

He didn’t know what it was back then but he knew what it was now. 

Damian, though high status within the League, had not been spared of physical abuse from his tutors - every wrongdoing, he was reprimanded for and, if it was more than a small mistake, he was often slapped or hit with sticks. He still had marks over his fingers that never quite healed and he grew to take pain as a given - he wasn’t really afraid of it.   
So Bruce’s first slap didn’t come to him as a surprise. He’d fucked up and he deserved it and he should have known better, so he took it like he’d always done, head turned to the side under its weight, cheek throbbing. 

_I’ll do better_ , was all he’d said and his father had looked at him with a glare in his eye that Damian did not understand. 

* * *

Back when he first met Bruce, he did not understand what it was that he felt, but, as that slap landed squarely on the soft side of his cheek, he knew what his feelings were, and he didn’t like it. Not because it was inherently considered sick and wrong but because his mind didn’t even try to fight against it.   
The slap was the first time his father had even touched him in years and Damian welcomed the warmth of it, the sting, with graceful gratitude. It had only lasted for a moment but he could still feel the ghost of Bruce’s fingers over his skin and it almost felt like a kiss. He reveled into it when his father turned away from him, unwilling to face him. Damian closed his eyes and etched that feeling into his mind, repeating it over and over again until he could conjure it at will, in great detail. 

Bruce doesn’t look him in the eye for a while after that incident. Damian instead takes advantage of those diverted gazes to allow his eyes to cross over his father’s body with reckless abandon - he dips into the valleys of his muscles, traces paths down his battered and scarred back when they’re changing out of their uniforms in the early morning. He almost reaches out to touch the deep canyon of his spine but stops himself in time. 

Damian was fine before that slap, before _touch_ , but he’s slowly begun to spiral since because he did something he never allowed himself to do, simply because he had nothing to latch on to - he let himself dream, fantasize. 

Now a door he’d kept closed and well-guarded had opened and he’d lost both the key and the desire to keep it locked. 

* * *

The next time, Bruce’s hand, fingers rough and calloused, grab onto the back of Damian’s neck and shove him away from an argument with Dick that threatened to get out of hand. His skin is so warm and his grip is so strong Damian can’t fight against it but he does only because of the threat of release. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s thrashing way too hard and when Bruce’s other hand lands on his face, it does so with more force than initially intended. 

There’s a split second stuck there between them, where time stops and their eyes meet before Bruce’s hand slaps his other cheek, as he lets go of the hold he has on the back of his neck. 

Damian stumbles to the side just a little and Dick’s surprised gasp cuts through the silence of the room. He looks at his father with the corner of his eye and feels the man’s eyes on him, pressing on his shoulders, like a heavy blanket. His heart rate hitches up and there’s an exchange between them, though Damian can’t quite decipher what words are being said. Before he can do anything, Dick comes between them, one hand on Bruce’s chest, fingers splayed over the black shirt, pressing into his skin, like a supplication. 

_Bruce’s first Robin can touch and hold as he pleases_ , he’s always eager to do so - it comes easy for him because he has not been as conditioned as Damian to not touch. To treat caresses like they are poison. 

Damian cares about Dick, in spite of all the words he sometimes says, he really does, but in that moment, he acts without thinking, jealousy rising through his body like a raging fire. It comes alive without notice, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, before it envelops all his insides and ignites a spark in his brain.   
He steps in the middle slapping the inside of Dick’s elbow sharply, causing him to pull his hand back and away from Bruce like he’s been burned. Eyes wide with surprise, his frown is asking Damian a question. Damian, for what’s it worth, he wants to answer it, but he doesn’t have the words to do it - he just stands there, lodged like a bullet between the two of them, as if he’s protecting his father from Dick.   
If anyone would walk in on them at that moment, they’d think it was Bruce who’d been in an argument with Dick and Damian was the one who tried to stop it, not the other way around. 

He can hear his heart thunder in his ears, feel his father’s body loom over him, casting a shadow. He wants to melt into it, press his hands over Bruce’s chest the same way Dick did, but not in a defensive manner, not to keep him away but to pull him in. 

He huffs loudly and realizes his fists are clenched, ready to throw punches. At _Dick_ , of _all people_. 

He offers nothing. Instead, he turns around and leaves the room though he can swear he feels Bruce’s eyes follow him all the way up, to his room. 

* * *

The third time is during patrol. 

Damian is reckless on purpose - stupidly reckless and Bruce is not stupid: he knows he’s done it on purpose and he asks why, asks _what the hell was he thinking_ but Damian doesn’t offer him an answer, riles him up as much as he can with his attitude until it comes. This time the fingers curl up in a fist and he hears a crunching sound he is familiar with. The pain comes a few moments later and the blood that starts to flow from his nose and into his mouth is not something new. 

It’s not the first time someone broke his nose, but it is the first time _Bruce_ does it and he is filled with both anger and regret as much as he is exalted. He finds no compromise between those three emotions so he allows all of them to wash over him while his father stands towering over him under the steady summer rain.   
He lays there, on his hands and knees, fingers swimming in a puddle filled with neon reflections. The rooftop smells like wet concrete and the sound of the rain is a melody that will haunt his memory of that moment for as long as he will be able to remember it. 

When he finally looks up, he sees Bruce’s chest rising with fast intakes of breath and he sees his hand clenching and unclenching, half hidden in the shadows of his cape. Damian also notices with surprise that his glove is held tightly in his other hand.   
“Thank you.” He says, weakly, eyes stuck to his father’s knuckles, dark and scarred, as if he hasn’t looked at them when no one was watching, hundreds of times before. As if he hasn’t memorized them already, as if he hasn’t imagined them on his cheek, as if he hasn’t fantasized about those knuckles between his lips or making way for themselves by pressing his thighs open.   
“What for?” Bruce frowns, stoically so.   
“For hitting me with your bare hand.” It comes out a little sarcastic but as a whole - utterly grateful, and it almost makes him sick to his stomach that it sounds like that. 

Bruce doesn’t reply. He stands there in the rain for a moment longer, before he turns around and walks away. 

  
  


* * *

The next morning it’s hard for Damian to swallow his breakfast food: for one, he has to breathe through his mouth because his nose is still clogged up. He did his best to get rid of the coagulated blood in the sink but he knows it will take another day. The bump on the bridge of his nose is purple and painful but again - not something he hasn’t experienced before.   
The other thing is that his lip got busted open as well but he’s pretty sure that is not his father’s doing - it might have happened earlier in the night. 

Alfred looks at him with a pity-filled expression and Damian ignores it, tries to eat through the pain but the food burns a sore spot on the inside of his cheek and he settles for plain toast with eggs. It hurts to chew but it’s not impossible.   
Bruce hasn’t said a word to him since he sat down on the opposite end of the kitchen island, steaming coffee cup in his hand. He goes through his emails on his phone, frowns at some, half-assedly eats his breakfast exchanging one-syllable words with Alfred until the man announces he is going out for errands. 

Then they are left alone in a silent room that shines in the golden light of the early morning. From beyond the open window, Damian can hear the birds chirping as well as the wind dancing through the foliage and this could be idyllic if only the weight in his heart wouldn’t be so heavy.   
He chews a slice of apple slowly but he accidentally bites into the cut inside his mouth and he winces, teeth clenched against the pain. He swallows the slice only half chewed, eyes watery, so focused on trying not to accidentally choke he doesn’t even notice when Bruce is by his side. 

“Let me see.” His father sets the coffee cup down next to Damain’s plate and both his thumbs go over his lips, the rest of his fingers splay themselves across his cheeks and jaw, holding him still in the semblance of a vice. Those thumbs go between his lips without any ceremony, methodically, and the metaphor of the act of penetration is not lost to Damian in that moment as the tip of his father’s right thumb half-forces his mouth to open. 

He freezes in place and willingly allows him to do what he wants, his eyes not leaving Bruce’s face for a moment. He feels his finger go against his teeth, like he’s a sharp-toothed animal, before it slightly stretches open the corner of his mouth. Damian winces but keeps still.   
“Next time tell me about this.” He says, eyes set on a wound Damian can only feel “If you don’t spit out and clean all the blood a wound like this could become infected.”  
Damian blinks and slightly nods in response. Bruce’s thumb goes deeper inside his mouth and he feels the wound, with Damian stiff as a board under his hands. He rubs circles around it, trying to feel for any hard spots but doesn’t find any. He slowly pulls out of his mouth but his hands don’t leave Damian’s face: instead, the wet thumb traces the remnants of saliva over the cut on his lip. 

The movement is too gentle to be attributed to a monolith of brute force such as his father but it’s happening nonetheless. It crosses his mind for a moment that his father too, must have been gentle once. He must have been tender, he must have loved someone for the first time too and the recipient of that love must have been, at some point, on the receiving end of those first tentative touches.   
The thought pours gasoline over a fire of jealousy that’s barely been burning inside him. It flares up like a torch in his mind. Bruce however, seems oblivious to how the cogs of his son’s mind keep turning, though his eyes are on him, summer sky-blue as always, and strangely, Damian feels exposed, almost as if he’s sitting more than naked in front of him, as if his ribcage is open and Bruce can see the erratic pulse of his heart. 

His father’s fingers move gently over the bruised nose, barely touching it. They dip over the abused bump and trail a path to his cheek, just to rest on the cut on his lip moments later. Damian feels a sting in his chest. It hurts. But it’s a good hurt, it’s yearning and full of desire because it’s as if Bruce is looking at his abused skin, at him, like he’s looking at a work of art.

With lips barely parted, his eyes eventually lock with Damian’s and there is a silent understanding between them in that moment. No one talks but Damian can feel that something is shifting inside Bruce, or at least, he allows Damian to see that it’s happening as he bends over slowly, eyes searching his son’s face, trying to examine his reaction. Damian stands still because if what he thinks will happen will actually come to pass, it will be a victory he didn’t think himself capable of achieving. 

When Bruce is just a breath away, he gives Damian one last look, before their lips touch. The kiss is not really a kiss; it’s chaste and tentative: Bruce’s lips linger over his own for what feels like minutes and he closes his eyes into it, giving in to the small pressure, inhaling his father’s scent, taking in his presence, the bulk of him.   
Oh, how he would love to melt into him, dissolve into his skin and make a home for himself inside his bones, live under the shelter of his heavy body, safe and protected. 

He feels Bruce’s tongue, warm and wet, prod his lips, lick a clean line over the cut on it and, with great regret, he allows his father to move away from him. As he straightens up, he takes it all away with him: the weight, the raging fire inside Damian, everything. Damian feels like something is being pulled out of him and he fights desperately to regain it but his hands reach out for nothing but empty air.   
His father stands in front of him for a few moments longer, their eyes still locked together, before he walks out of the kitchen without another word. Damian doesn’t turn to watch him go, he doesn’t say any of the words that are stuck in his throat, instead he sits there, trying desperately not to lick his lips in order to preserve the ghost of his father’s kiss over them for a moment longer. 

He knows what he has to do now. He read it in Bruce’s eyes.   
If it’s blood he wants, Damian can give it to him. He’s given it unwillingly to much lesser men before. At least this time it will be on his own terms. 

* * *

  
  


He’d wiped the blood running down from his nose with the back of his hand but it’s only now that Bruce cleans his face that Damian realizes he’d done nothing but just spread it all over his mouth and cheek. 

The spots his father wipes with the damp cloth are sore and the cut on his cheekbone stings though his little winces don’t seem to make Bruce react in any way - he keeps cleaning the cut until it feels more inflamed than it actually is, then he takes a pea-sized amount of ointment on the tip of his finger and rubs it all over the cut, packing it in. Damian can’t remember the name of it but he recognizes the antiseptic-like smell as something his father uses often, on both himself as well as the others.   
He wraps his fingers over the edge of the hospital-grade bed and, as his muscles tense up, bare torso exposed to the chill of the cave, he feels where it hurts. 

He allowed his father to sweep him during training but it had been calculated, up until he miscalculated and slipped, injuring his elbow. He can feel the growing bump on it, the bruise that was going to form in a few hours.  
“You did good.” Bruce says and it takes Damian a moment to understand what exactly they’re talking about here. He looks at him and Bruce looks back, with a knowing glance, to confirm. He tries to force a smile but the cut in the corner of his lip won’t let him, so it comes out as some sort of askew grimace.   
Bruce did not hold back with that one: Damian tried to duck it but his father’s knuckles connected just at the right point, sending Damian to the floor, blood spraying in small droplets over the training mats.   
Now, as his father is collecting some pills from a drawer, Damian can still see dried traces of his own blood decorating Bruce’s knuckles in dark brown. When that hand offers him the yellow-coated pills, Damian doesn’t take them. With the sound of dripping water echoing in the background of the cave, he opens his mouth slightly, head tilted back a little, tongue resting on top of his lower front teeth. 

It’s the first time in a long time that he catches something akin to surprise in his father’s eyes. It’s gone as soon as it comes to life, gagged and bound down by his usual composure but Damian knows what he saw, so he doesn’t move. He sits there, mouth open, until Bruce’s fingers bring the two pills to his lips and place them on his tongue. It’s only then that he swallows them, without water, neither of them willing to let go of the other’s glance. 

A shadow catches a groove in his father’s jaw, a clench of his teeth and it’s only then that it dawns on Damian that this will continue in the same manner, a back and forth dance, forever, unless _**he**_ makes an actual move.   
That his father’s concept of right and wrong is rooting him into place and that those roots run deep. Damian could dig for years to try and reach those roots or he could sever Bruce from them directly. He decides in that moment that he does have that power - after all, he’s held a sword to his father’s throat before. He did not cut then, but he could now, at least symbolically and he knew, he had the absolute certainty, that Bruce would not fight back, not as long as Damian led the execution. 

That is fine with him - he’d executed men before.  
He would do _anything_ for him. 

The words “ _I consent_ ” leave his mouth before he ever realizes he’s said them. Bruce frowns a little, tilts his head to the side, undecided about what reply those words warrant from him.  
“To _what_ , Damian?” He turns the bottle of pills in his hands slowly and they fall inside the recipient in quick succession with a familiar sound.   
Damian leans forward and reaches for his father’s right hand, the one whose knuckles are still stained in dark brown and bare the white marks of long-gone cuts. He takes it between his own two hands, so much smaller, small enough they can both be covered by Bruce’s, before he brings it to his lips.   
“What you want and won’t allow yourself to do.” He says and kisses the first knuckle “I don’t mind it,” he kisses the second and third knuckle “I want it too. It’s alright, father. I promise.”  
He marks his cryptic confession with another kiss, this time in the palm of Bruce’s hand. It’s dry and it smells like medicine. He presses his lips there reverently, for a few long moments before he lets go. 

Bruce lifts his chin in his direction with an almost imperceptible gesture, like he’s defiant but Damian knows that’s him being conflicted. He’s been given permission to do the unthinkable, but he’s at the precipice, standing on the knife’s edge, unsure if to take the jump or not.   
In pure Bruce fashion, he stands in the in-between for a while longer and Damian’s heart drops when he sees him turn a little to the side and take a hold of the bandages near him. He doesn’t push him. He knows Bruce well enough not to do that, so he stares at the ground, teeth clenched, waiting for a hammer blow that never comes. 

His father is completely silent and works on him methodically.   
Bruce takes care of him with gentle touches. He wraps the gauze, cleans the cuts, rubs creams that smell like peppermint over his bruises and kneads at them painfully, to stimulate blood flow. When his hands cross over his shoulders and dip in the valley in between his shoulder blades, Damian shudders. He’s unable to control it, hard as he might try. If Bruce takes notice however, he doesn’t acknowledge it in any way - his fingers continue to rub over the large bruises over his back in peaceful circles, the pressure always constant.   
They’re older bruises, from four nights ago when they got in trouble with Bane. Damian got smacked so hard into a wall he almost lost consciousness for a moment. No concussion, thankfully, but headaches for days instead and a collection of bruises as large as his palm. 

Bruce moves around him, pressing his fingers where he thinks it’s necessary and they glide over Damian’s dark skin with a wet sound. Sometimes they press hard enough to hurt, other times it’s like Bruce is just running them across a fragile thing he is careful not to break. Damian can’t see his face, he stands behind him, but he can feel his warmth and he sits on the bed patiently, waiting for the moment he will receive his reward because he knows one is coming, though he doesn’t know what shape it will come in, not until Bruce’s fingers go over the back of his neck, massaging the skin there in circles. 

The move takes Damian by surprise and he moans into the touch because honestly, he needed it. The tension he feels in those muscles is unreal. He leans into it, suddenly weakened, goosebumps forming in quick succession over his arms and back. His father allows him to tilt his head backwards a little as his fingers move upwards, into his hair, massaging his scalp, fisting his hair gently and then releasing it.   
Damian doesn’t realize how close they are, lost in the relaxing touch, not until Bruce’s lips trace kisses over his face. He begins with the now healed cut on his temple then goes lower and kisses around the one on his cheekbone, trailing warm lips over his jawline. Damian can feel his hot breath as he exhales over his own skin and he feels his own getting faster and faster, shots of pleasure travelling lightning-fast from his stomach to his groin. 

He wants to whisper his name just because but he’s afraid he’ll shatter the moment if he does, so he swallows every word that threatens to leave his mouth. It’s not too hard, not too hard when Bruce’s tongue slithers between his lips, gently coaxing Damian to open up for him.   
The cut in the corner of his lip stabs him with a sharp pain but it’s manageable, especially now, when his heart is thundering a rhythm so loudly he can hear it in his ears, like a drum. It chants his father’s name like a prayer, over and over again until it stops making sense as it bounces off the walls of his skull and echoes through the chambers of his heart.   
“I can’t do this…” Bruce mutters over his lips, in spite of the fact that his fingers are now splayed over Damian’s bare chest, in spite of the fact that his father’s other hand is fisting his hair. His voice is half-choked and divided so Damian latches on to his shirt and holds it between his fingers as hard as he can, trying to ground him into the moment. 

He can’t let Bruce’s mind wander, if it does, he will move away and Damian will never encounter a love like this ever again.   
He will spend his entire life chasing it - he can see himself in that moment, years from then, decades, still searching, a slave of the memory of his father’s eyes, of his powerful hands, of his lips. He will try to find all those things in others but he will always fail. He will be heartbroken for the rest of his life and nothing can convince him it will turn out any different. The grip he has on Bruce’s shirt tightens.  
“Please…” He asks. Pleads. _Begs_. 

His father kisses him with so much force he breaks his lip open again. 

* * *

The time that follows is half-memory, half remembered dream. 

Nights melt one into the other and Damian makes a permanent residence in Bruce’s bed, though always in secret. His father never touches him during the day and neither does he say sorry for all the bruises, _sorry for all the blood_ , but he kisses it away all the same.   
The traces his lips leave over Damian’s body don’t heal any of it: they spell a promise of sorts that he can’t quite decipher but accepts anyway. 

There are days when all Bruce does is throw him about, when he slaps him so hard his cheeks stay red for hours. There are also days when he wraps his fingers around Damian’s neck and squeezes while his other hand moves over his cock, up and down, up and down, until he cums all over his chest and face, sprays the hot liquid into his mouth. He stands above him, lost in the aftermath of his orgasm for a moment, before he uses the nearest shirt or sheet to clean him up. 

Other days, Damian, so slicked up with lube he’s leaking, rides his fingers, completely naked on top of him. He dampens his pants with lube and pre-cum but Bruce doesn’t care: instead he pulls at Damian’s hair, kisses him hard, grabs his thighs, his back, his upper arms so hard it hurts, makes him ride his fingers until he’s exhausted, pushing in all the right places and then pulling away, delaying his orgasm, keeping it just out of his reach for who knows how long.   
He never gives it to him until beads of sweat decorate his forehead like a crown, until he’s so hard and throbbing it brings tears to his eyes. It’s only then that he pushes just right and kisses his forehead as Damian cums and cums, fingers holding on to Bruce’s shoulders for balance. He stains his stomach and his father’s bare chest, his chin too and he limps to the side, exhausted and out of breath.   
Bruce’s tongue flicks around his lips and he finds one, single white bead, which he licks clean and then he does the same with the small droplets attached to Damian’s jawline and neck. He shudders under the attention and his hands wrap around his father’s neck limply, with complete abandon. 

He’s never been loved like this. 

His mother’s love was nothing but sharp blades and even sharper teeth. The care of his mentors was indistinguishable from their love of their craft while his grandfather looked at him with only the interest reserved for something that needs to be molded and created into his own image.   
His father, though he was addicted to violence, to the purple shade of bruises and the smell of blood in the air, he never left him broken on the floor. There was always the moment of love and adoration where he picked him up, the moment of reverence when his brutal hands turned gentle, when they touched him like he was a broken bird in need of healing. It was perhaps an overstatement to say that Bruce’s hands were the hands of healing but they were, at least for Damian. 

The League never searched to build him up, not in the real sense of the word: all they did was break him down and force him to get up by himself as a monolith of solitude and murder. Bruce on the other hand broke him down and then collected him in his arms and made him feel wanted, more desired than anyone ever did. He made him whole, patched up his broken edges together again with silver and gold. 

* * *

  
  


When it finally happens, when Bruce unlocks the last door, the one he was too scared to, it’s already autumn and the manor is surrounded by piles of fallen leaves and the nights have gotten colder. 

But his father’s bed is still warm and his hands burn over Damian’s skin as his fingers slide in and out of him while he lays there, his stomach propped on a pillow and his arms wrapped around another. He feels Bruce tower over him as he kneels on the bed, naked and rock hard, feels the warmth coming from him. His free hand marks paths over his back, trying to relax him as he adds more fingers in and goes in and out of him slowly and patiently.   
Every now and then his body moves along with his fingers and Damian can feel the tip of his cock hit the back of his thighs, leaving patches of sticky pre-cum on his skin. 

Damian doesn’t know how much time passes - it feels like hours- before Bruce finally puts both his hands on his hips and begins to ease himself inside him. He slowly pushes in, just a little and rests there, unmoving, allowing him to get used to it, then he pushes again, thumbs tracing circles over his skin.   
There’s so much lube dripping down between his legs Damian is not sure if he’s sweating or not but he feels hot all over and the sharp pain he feels as Bruce pushes slowly in only adds to it. He bites his lip and tries to keep as quiet as he can but this is not a pain he’s ever felt before and it will take getting used to. Bruce doesn’t rush - he pushes in, allows him to relax, then pulls away a little, starts again, taking Damian’s body inch by precious inch with immense patience. 

Time stretches and dilates until Damian’s world is reduced to nothing but the faint, yellow light coming from the lamp on the opposite night stand and the towering presence of his father behind him, inside him.   
With one final slow thrust, Bruce settles all the way inside. Damian knows because he can feel the tuft of dark public hair on his buttocks and he breathes out a sigh of relief as he makes himself relax around the width of him. He twitches at one point and Damian lets out a surprised and painful moan.   
“Sorry.” Bruce says, voice genuinely apologetic. Damian knows he’s trying to control himself, he always is and it’s still a miracle they got this far, still a goddamn miracle that they both feel the same about each other, that Damian managed to demolish all the illusions of righteousness Bruce might have had about them.   
“It’s okay.” He mutters then inhales deeply and exhales much in the same manner. Bruce attempts to move a little but his cock burns inside Damian and he whimpers, arms involuntarily reaching towards the edge of the bed, his most basic instinct trying to pull him away from danger. 

He calms himself down and swallows. This is fine. He wants this - he wants it a lot, more than anything, and he knows that it will get easier. 

His father bends over him and kisses his shoulder, kisses a now yellow bruise Damian doesn’t even remember getting. He’s learned now that Bruce prefers the fresh ones, all blue-purple, decorated with constellations in the same hues of colors as a sunset before a storm. But he appreciates the ones that fade too. One finger pushes away the hair stuck to his temple and Bruce’s voice exhales hot air into his ear:  
“I’ll _never_ hurt you.” He says and Damian knows what he means. His blood on Bruce’s knuckles, the bruises his hands leave behind - those are different things. Things other people wouldn’t understand.   
“I know…” He acknowledges, voice broken and shaky. He sounds so small.   
“I will stop if you want me to.” He pauses and the moment is tense “ _All of it_.” Tenderness drips from his voice like honey and the words hang heavy between them.   
Damian knows Bruce must still fight with what he’s doing to him. In his most private moments, he is most likely still at war and if Damian wants anything more than what is happening between them right in that moment, is to give him peace.   
He could tell him _yes, let’s stop this_ , but Bruce would still live with the regret of having given into his violent impulses, into his desire for his own flesh and blood while Damian himself would give his heart away trying to find Bruce in every man he’d fuck. And he never would because there is no one in the world like him. 

It’s because they are flesh and blood that they play this tug-of-war so well: the cycle of physical violence dampened by the care and tenderness received in the aftermath. It helps Damian take the punishment he believes he deserves but at the end of his torment, he is always forgiven. Bruce, on the other hand, releases whatever it is he has to release upon him and is still loved and adored at the end of it.   
It burrows deeper, this thing they both share and perhaps it will get worse before it gets better but Damian doesn’t want to go through with it alongside anyone else. 

He hides his face in his hands and exhales into the sheets.   
_I will kill you if you stop,_ he wants to tell him, but they’d be nothing but hollow words and this is not the time for threats. Bruce only speaks to him with this voice when it’s just the two of them, behind locked doors, because he trusts him and him only with the parts of him that are broken and fragile. Damian is too young for a lot of things but not young enough to not understand that one wrong word, at this point in time, would tip the balance they’ve achieved to treacherous depths.   
It would take Damian acting a fool one time to get his father to retreat back into that fortress of solitude he calls his heart and he doesn’t want that.   
“I never want you to stop.” His voice comes out muffled by the sheets and his hands. Bruce gently lays on top of him, and rests in his elbows, his bulky frame covering Damian completely. Bruce’s hands pry away his own off his face and brush his hair backwards, away from his forehead a couple of times and then he glues his own temple to Damian’s. 

He feels protected, sheltered from all the bullshit in the world and all the bullshit both him and his father give in return, to the world, by the virtue of all the masks they wear. It’s only in these moments when they are like this, together, naked and isolated, that they are both their real selves, masks dropped at the foot of the bed alongside with their clothes.   
Damian has never seen a Bruce so tender and Bruce has never seen a Damian so gentle. No one ever has and probably no one ever will. 

The epiphany that he is in love and that Bruce is in love with him only blossoms in his mind in this moment like he’s never even considered it before; he has but it had never quite rang completely true until the second Bruce pressed his temple onto his own and closed his eyes, holding Damian in his arms as he laid completely still inside him.  
“I only take, Damian.” Bruce breaks the silence, though his voice is merely a whisper “I take things and I like to keep them. But you will grow older and so will I. You will outgrow this and I will be left with nothing. And it will tear me apart.”  
Damian stares into nothing, pillows and sheets blurring on the edge of his vision with the weight of a confession he was not expecting drifting through the air. 

He pushes back into Bruce. The burning sensation is still there, but it’s manageable so he does it again, begins to pant and closes his eyes, his right hand coiling around Bruce’s upper arm for balance and support.   
“I’ll _never_ leave you.” He breathes as the sensation of Bruce inside him becomes both pleasurable and painful at the same time. He can feel himself get hard a little and he adds the friction of the pillow beneath him into the mix “I swear it, father.”   
That’s all he manages to say. Bruce plants a kiss on his temple, it’s a hard, painful kiss but it’s full of love.   
  
Bruce's lips move to his shoulder and his hair as he begins to move inside him, slowly, matching his movements. They keep the same rhythm for a long time, Bruce’s bedroom - _their bedroom_ \- silent save for the sound of their breaths and that of skin meeting skin. It’s cold outside but Damian can feel drops of sweat drip down his thighs and across his back where his father’s stomach and chest rubs against his own skin.   
His bruises hurt but they’re nothing but a background pain in the scheme of everything else that is happening with his body at that moment. When Bruce’s cock brushes past one particular spot, Damian lets out a moan that the man above him has to muffle with his hand. But he finds it again and thrusts into it, over and over again and Damian never thought this could feel _so good,_ that being like this with someone else -with the only person he loves above all else- can make your mind go completely empty. 

Damian cums first: he drips all over the pillow in short bursts, covering his own mouth with his hand, trying to keep as quiet as he can and Bruce follows just moments later, overcome with how tight Damian gets as he spills across the expensive silk pillowcase. Damian feels himself being filled with the hot liquid and he moans in both pleasure and pain at how Bruce twitches and contracts inside him.   
His father grunts, teeth clenched, barely making a noise, before Damian feels him relax. He still holds himself up in his elbows on top of him but he is heavier than before, mellowed down by the effort. With one hand on Damian’s hip, he slowly pulls out and they both fall on their backs, breathing hard, staring at the dark ceiling. 

The silence between them is comfortable - always has been, even in the mornings after the slaps, the punches or the sparring sessions Damian intentionally lost. They understand each other well and that is all that matters. 

He wants to tell his father he loves him but it feels a little tacky to do it now, so he holds it in for the time being. Damian takes his hand instead, brings it to his lips and kisses it. 

  
  
  


**14 YEARS LATER**

  
  
  
  


The summer is stifling and Gotham’s buildings seem to just go higher and higher in the sky. His suit allows him to go as high as he needs but that doesn’t make the dead drops comfortable. 

Damian stretches his arm and checks his shoulder but he doesn’t know if it’s a phantom pain or not - he’s just turned 27 that winter but his body’s creaking more than the manor’s wooden floors. He pulls the mask off and lets it drop on the medical table as he steps into the light.   
The cave is dark - Bruce got rid of all his trophies a long time ago and now the spotlights only light up what they consider to be probably points of entry in case of a full-scale assault. They’ve reinforced the cave to the point of overkill but they both share the same level of paranoia at the end of the day, so it had not been hard to come to an agreement. 

He can guess his father’s shape slouched in the chair behind the console. The holographic screens illuminate the same cup of coffee he’s been using for the past ten years -or has it been longer than that? Damian doesn’t know, he’s lost track of time - nights and days blend into one another and only the most terrible battles stick to his memory now.   
“It’s almost daylight.” Bruce says, tapping away on an electric blue holographic keyboard.   
“Was debating if to watch the sunrise.” Damian says, placing his hands on Bruce’s shoulders. He squeezes a little and earns himself a needy groan as his father leans his head back and rests it on the leather chair.   
“I should be the one giving you massages, not the other way around.”   
Damian shrugs and pushes more of his weight into Bruce’s tense shoulders: “Age before beauty, you know how it goes.”   
“Bastard.” His father replies, with a smile. 

Damian laughs softly and his fingers leave his father’s shoulders and reach to his jawline, gently coaxing the other man to tilt his head backwards.   
His eyes always look more piercing in the blue light of the holographic screens but, where other people might read sternness in the deep wrinkles that cross his face, Damian only sees a warm, familiar gaze.   
The gaze of a man he’s loved deeply and selfishly for over a decade. He’s loved him like secret things are loved, in between the shadows, with hushed whispers. But he doesn't regret any of it - it is the life they chose. 

He runs a hand over his forehead and hair, thinking how lucky Bruce got he didn’t lose his hair. He’s long since gone grey at the temples but as far as Damian is concerned, it’s done nothing but enhance his appeal, if anything. At the same time, those grey strands are sometimes a grim reminder that Bruce is not getting any younger. That sooner or later they will have to realize they are together on borrowed time.  
At some point, he will not feel his father's hand on his skin anymore - in either violence or tenderness. There will be no one left to kiss the bruises, worship at the broken altar Damian's body has become. What is he going to do then?   
Damian just assumes he will hand over the cowl to someone else and follow Bruce into the grave. He knows, he knows there will be no one to replace Bruce and he knows he will be left unhappy and angry regardless if he finds someone who loves him truly. Because no one will make love feel like Bruce does - gently violent.   
They are the same person now - the Bat is just an extension of two souls who think and breathe the same. Their heartbeats even regulate to beat in the same way when they go to bed at night - he knows, he's checked.   
Damian tried to make himself believe he would come to terms with Bruce's loss for many years but he knows now it will be an impossible task. He doesn't even want to try it. He's grown tired of trying to do the right things - once Bruce is gone, he has decided he will destroy everything and then himself. No other outcome feels right. 

Bruce is one year away from turning 50 and, though he stopped being Batman since a long time ago, all the years he spent exerting himself have taken a toll on his health in more ways than he’s willing to admit. More often than not, Damian wonders how long they still have together. He is willing to give themselves another 25 years because he is optimistic like that but he also knows that might not be the case.   
Bruce wraps his hand around Damian’s wrist and squeezes it lightly:  
“ _Stop_.”   
“Sorry, I was somewhere else.” Damian shakes his head a little.   
“You were in that place I don’t like to see you go.”  
He smiles and caresses Bruce’s hair:   
“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassures him, placing a soft kiss on his forehead “I’m right here.” 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
